Kiss's 1979 single I Was Made For Lovin' You is enjoying an unlikely second life as a modern dance floor banger after Dutch DJ and producer Oliver Heldens remade the song with Chic guitarist and disco legend Nile Rodgers.
The new version of I Was Made For Lovin' You retains no elements from the original apart from a re-recorded version of the chorus, and features Rodgers' guitar alongside vocals from the House Gospel Choir, a London collective who perform live covers of house and garage music anthems. It's something that Heldens has been working on for some time.
“When I made the very funk and disco inspired bassline for this track in 2015, I knew it was one of my best basslines since Gecko [a UK number one hit in 2014], and I just had to send it to one of my all-time heroes Nile Rodgers," the DJ tells The Music Essentials. "He also loved it and he blessed the track with his signature jamming electric funk guitars, which was a dream come true for me!
"Finding the right vocal for this track has been a real journey though, I’ve done over a dozen of toplines on it with several singers/songwriters, but in the end the hook of Kiss's iconic hit I Was Made For Lovin’ You turned out to be a match made in heaven. And with the extraordinary House Gospel Choir on board, they managed to make it sound even more heavenly! This song has been such a vibe in my sets!"
In the two videos bellow, you can compare Heldens' studio recording with a "live" version filmed at the Ullta Music Festival in Miami earlier this yet, an event attended by 165,000 dance music fans.
Kiss guitarist Paul Stanley originally wrote I Was Made For Lovin' You – which regarded by many as a "sell-out" when it was released – with songwriter Desmond Child, who'd go on to co-write huge hits like Bon Jovi's You Give Love a Bad Name and Livin' on a Prayer", Aerosmith's Dude (Looks Like a Lady) and Crazy, and Alice Cooper's Poison.
Stanley told Classic Rock, "At the time, I think we had maybe lost some of our rock edge and were a bit more concerned about getting peer acceptance, and that’s always a poisoned idea, because you should never forsake the people who love you for ones who don’t. It was written at a time when I was hanging out at [infamous NYC nightclub] Studio 54, and I was thinking ‘Gee, I could write one of these songs.’
"All the songs at Studio 54 seemed to be about ‘tonight’ – about having a good time in the present rather than thinking about the future – and so I went home, set the drum machine to 126 beats per minute, and got to work."
